St. Lucia

I'm in St. Lucia!

And I have 5 minutes of internet time. So for a very short summary:

Flight! Pitons, Soufriere- wooden fishing village, amazing palm huts, snorkeling with crazy coral colors, waterfalls, trees, mineral baths, bus, vieux fort, more bus, Castries, touristy north area, another small wooden fishing village with tiny houses of all different colors stuck in 1903. And with amazing food and friday night parties. Then add a lot of beaches, unbelievably HOT sun, rum, hitchhiking and a good dose of sitting on piers watching sunsets and that's been our St. Lucian experience so far.

Tonight we take the ferry over to Martinique and begin couchsurfing! Can't wait! I will put photos and write more (eventually).

#18 Sell Sea Shells by the Sea Shore

This one we had to leave until the end of our stay, cuz as much as we love embarassing ourselves we, umm, well our sea shells were of questionable quality.



But we went ahead with it, and if we're gonna do something we do it properly, so we took an ad out in the paper and duly set up our sea-shell sale stand by the sea shore. With all 5 sea shells (and 5 books) for sale.

And we actually sold stuff! (see our first customer photo). We got 5 books and 1 sea shell sold. We were so proud that we went and blew our entire profit on rotis next door. It was so worth it.

Our first customer!

We made friends with the other sellers next to us and ended up donating our unsold shells to our neighbors. I promised them a prize if they managed to get them sold. They confidently told me that people buy weird shit. So true.

#24 Climb a mountain

The volcano from the beach

The view to the Caribbean side of St. Vincent

Walking along the ridge of the crater.

The view from the top of Mt. Peggy in Bequia

Some long overdue accomplishments

My time in Bequia is coming to an end so I've gotta tick off a few more tasks from my my 35 things list:

#3 Build an amazing awesome sandcastle:


We decided to go with the classic design, adding a little arabesque influence and some cookie-box bunkers out front for good measure.

#18 Grow a pre-decorated Christmas tree


No decoration needed, this one came with lights and tiny Santas straight form out of the coconut! Its true I tell you!

Flail your arms and legs to the music

Aah!!

Haven't been blogging in a while cuz work went all crazy with full hotel/weddings/Easter Sunday events then my family visited and now I've got 5 days of work left + 3 days to enjoy & pack before I leave my life in Bequia and begin traveling the Caribbean for 2 months!

So I'm trying to enjoy Bequia as much as possible while I'm still here, and am missing it already.

Photo by Gemmo

Some updates from this part of the world:

They caught another whale! Its the 2nd of the season, and was bigger than the first.

Photo by Gemmo

It rained! Yes, that's big news here with what has been apparently the worst drought in 30 years. The rain conveniently arrived when my parents did, and a week later is still here- I have never appreciated rain so much and I'm loving the smell of wet everything, the quiet feeling of anticipation just before and after rain, the cool breeze it brings with it, and all the changing colors of the sky.


Been out decorating old walls as much as possible- I wanna paint these ruins up before I leave, but there's too many walls!

Panorama by Nadja

The tourist season is officially over and the hotel has come to a crawl, which has given me some breathing room and time to finish off the last few projects before I leave.

Sponges are not meant to be used as earmuffs.

Pink cake is only good on birthdays.

Lovely dorito Bag photo by Gemmo today

Whale!

They caught a whale! A little while ago they caught the first whale of the season here in Bequia. Bequia is one of only a handful of places in the world which is legally allowed to catch whales as its part of their traditional customs. They're allowed to catch 2 per year, usually humpbacks as they are migrating in the waters between Bequia and Mustique.

Although catching 2 a year using traditional methods doesn't make much of an impact on the whales; it feeds into larger issues as St. Vincent is essentially being paid off by nations such as Japan (which is involved in mass whaling way beyond its waters) to vote in its favor on whaling matters.

If you're interested in reading more there's a good article here going over both sides of the argument, as well as a lot of whaling past and present.


Opinions aside it was a fascinating thing watching the whale being brought in to Semple Cay (a little island just in front of my hotel). I headed out to the Cay (littered with huge whale bones) to watch the whale being cut up and sold, with loud party music already pumping in the background.


Its a big event here to catch a whale and there was chaos everywhere as the fishermen hacked off their squares of blubber and meat, throwing it at their friends or bringing it in to weigh and then sell. Apparently you cook the meat in the blubber and it tastes kind of like beef.

At the end of the afternoon they had only finished half of it, so they towed it out to sea to preserve it and the next day they finished it off. They say that if you melt the blubber into an oil a teaspoon of it will cure colds. It was definitely an interesting experience.